Topic: Why are people scared of taxes? - page 25. (Read 31550 times)

If a contractor came into your home, and pointed out the the floor joists were rotten, the foundation was slipping, and the roof had more leaks than good shingles, but then proceeded to offer you the solution of a can of spray-paint, would that be a good contractor to hire?

Occupying much the same position in my formative years is The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein. Strongly suggest you read it, and while you're at it, keep looking into AnCap.

Funny that I can get a doctor next day, when I have to wait for months in UK, France and Canada. Do some research please.

edit: Do I need to bring up healthcare systems in Ukraine and Russia? They're free.
edit2: You know why it's so expensive here? People are just FAT. Really FAT, if they were as fat as in Norway, our costs would be down a LOT.

Care to show me that contract, and where, exactly, I signed? The only valid contract is one entered voluntarily. In fact, the only "social contract" I've signed is this one. Doesn't say anything about tax on there.

They would seem to disagree.

What do you think I'm doing? Just because you don't shoot anyone, doesn't mean it's not a revolution.

On the contrary, you seem to misunderstand large portions of his philosophy. Or, you're just being an asshole. (As stated previously, I'm leaning toward the latter.)

No, not really, just sad that you have nothing better to do.

OMG! That's almost like a free market!!!

Give one example of a country with a free market health system.

Health care was cheaper and more friendly back when it *was* free market. Unfortunately, startling increases in health care technology which brings both improvements in care and more expense happened at the same time as massive socialization and regulation of the healthcare industry, thus it is difficult to separate the variables.

I actually kinda like the UK model (though I disagree with it on principle). It's nice not to have to worry about healthcare, changing or losing your job and whatnot (it does have a lot of shortcomings too though). Unfortunately, the US seems to have taken the worst of all worlds and Obamacare just makes it worser.

This was already done.

Funny you call the least effective system in the world "pretty efficient".  I think you need to do some more research.

Why would there be less abuse of the public health system if it was almost entirely public, like in the countries with the most effective health care systems?  Are people living in the USA more prone to abusing public services than other people?  Why don't people abuse their private health insurances instead?

Just a little insight into my formative years, as a young teen I read The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair. While it is socialist semi-propaganda, the points raised within the book are too close to accurate for me to just laugh it off. That was one of the major foundations of my political philosophy.

I was the IT guy, I had no clue whatsoever that it was going on. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Anecdote: A small health center I used to work for got raided by the FBI (I think, this was many years ago and it was after I quit, might have been another three letter) for medicare fraud. They were committing a lot of fraud.

US system is pretty efficient, only the abuse of the public health system is actually brining the cost up.

Google the healthcare fraud, I personally know that most of the Russian doctors, here in NYC, are abusing the system. Most of them abuse medicare, the insurance company are hunting them down while the government doesn't (though lately I saw few cases when government caught very large rings, but not the individual doctors)

Examples of abuse:

Extra visits
Extra analysis
Extra treatments

I'd bet it's quiet common everywhere.

Yep, and under your contract with the government (as Locke would put it), you are obliged to pay tax from the fruits of your labour as well.  Both you and the government are bound by that contract.  You are however, according to John Locke, free to join the rest of the citizens in a revolution to replace the government if the government is working against the interests of citizens.

No, John Locke isn't a commie, but you obviously only agree to small pieces of his philosophy taken completely out of context.

Scary, huh?

My mistake, I meant John Locke. It's 3:00 AM here, and I've been up all night tending to my children. These things happen.
"[The individual] has a right to decide what would become of himself and what he would do, and as having a right to reap the benefits of what he did."

You're still a fucking troll, though.

No, and now I really don't understand you.  Adam Smith, if we are both talking about the Adam Smith who wrote "The Wealth of Nations", examined a lot of different taxes and how to maximize the income of a nation without a negative impact on the efficiency of the market.  His work has become a model for modern welfare states.  He especially advocated progressive tax rates and luxury taxes.  What would the wealth of nations be without taxes?

"Every tax, however, is, to the person who pays it, a badge, not of slavery, but of liberty." -- Adam Smith

Adam Smith was a commie?

It's official. You're trolling.

True, I didn't notice that.

You are a commie!

Face the reality.  Some of the fruits of your labour belong to the government.  By law and right.  You are just a peasant.

These ridiculous hypotheticals happen every minute.  Only regulations stop the further consequences.

This is simply not true.  You are making this up.  Give one example of a country with a free market health system that is better and more efficient than a public health system.  One single case.  Just one! 

Your mistake here is to assume health services is a free market.  It isn't.  You can't go shopping for a surgery when you are half dead, like you shop for a computer.  I live in a public health system, and I can still choose which hospital to get treatment at (even private hospitals).  Try to make me choose another hospital than the closest adequate one if I fall seriously ill.  It isn't going to happen.  If I wasn't dead or in a much worse condition when I got to a hospital far away, I would certainly not enjoy the transport.  The right to choose hospital makes almost no difference to where people get treated.  Luckily there are regulations to assure a minimum quality, so I'm not putting myself at risk by going to the closest hospital, and there is not really a need to google for alternatives in the ambulance.

If your heart stops, you assume that you can just go to the shop and get a new one, right?  I value myself more than I value my computer.  I also value my house more than I value my computer, and have an insurance for my house.  I do not have insurance for my health.  My health is insured by the public health system, since I am valuable for the government as a tax payer.  The government profits by making sure I get well and get back to work as soon as possible.

Ah, so you want some kind of regulation after all!  Like certifications, which you argued against earlier.

Now you're the one asking questions I've already answered.

It isn't yours, it belongs to the government.  What make you think it is yours?

Your rights over property you call your own are limited by the same laws that allow you to own property in the first place.  If you don't want the laws to apply, you need to start your own country.  Either by fighting for it, which I understand you want to do by threatening the police, or by settling in some part of the earth not yet claimed by any nation and declare your own nation there.  If you decide to take the land from your country by force, you must be prepared to fight the army.  The country has a right to fight back.

These ridiculous hypotheticals prove nothing. The free market solution provides better care in general, because all the right incentives are there. You point to one contrived case as proof that it fails completely. No, not everyone will magically be saved in a free market, but on average everyone will experience much better service.

I can play this game too. What if the regulators charged with the job of forcing "morality" on doctors decides you need to go kill some people on the other side of the world? What if they decide you have to go to prison for smoking a plant? What if the FDA approves a drug that causes death? You just take your business elsewhere... oh wait!


Stats are easily biased and misinterpreted. The fact is that if you understand that businesses profit ONLY by being the best providers of a good or service in a competitive market place, the profit incentive naturally leads to low prices and high quality. How does the computer industry work? Are the regulators forcing manufacturers to produce faster, more efficient chips? No, manufacturers do this on their own because their customers want it.

Do you have to buy computer insurance? No, because they're so damn cheap you can just buy a new one if it breaks. This is the unregulated market.


Actually, this kind of overconsumption happens when the government subsidises services. Because the extra expensive lung machine is paid for by the taxpayer and you are not directly exposed to the cost, you "buy" it over the cheap model. This drives prices up in a socialised system. To combat this effect, the government restricts what lung machines are available.

Charities, on the other hand, are much more discerning about how they distribute their resources.


Except that before the government got involved, they didn't.


What has this got to do with regulating markets? This can happen under the state system just as easily.

Also, there would be certification institutions for medical practitioners, if the market demanded it. Also, this would be considered fraud and the "doctor" would be liable for damages.